Probe into overdose at SA envoy’s Paris home

Crime & Courts / 5 September 2012, 12:49pm

SAPA

File photo

Paris - French prosecutors have launched a manslaughter and drug trafficking probe after tests showed a French woman died of a drug overdose at a South African diplomat's home, a judicial source said on Wednesday.

The preliminary investigation, carried out by the Paris drug squad, is aimed at uncovering who provided the 26-year-old woman with lethal doses of cocaine and heroin, the source said.

Drug tests have confirmed that the woman, whose body was discovered on Saturday after a party at the home of the South African embassy's first secretary, died of an overdose, the source told AFP.

Her body was shown to contain significant amounts of cocaine, heroin, alcohol and cutting agents used to dilute illicit drugs.

An autopsy showed on Monday that the woman had died of a pulmonary oedema, an accumulation of fluid in the lungs. - Sapa-AFP